Newsroom & Press releases

Novamedia/Postcode Lotteries is once again third in the City A.M. Charity Index 2017, which collates the biggest private charity donors in the world. Every year, British business newspaper City A.M. publishes a ranking of the world’s biggest donors to charitable organisations.

Numbers one and two are the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (United States) and the Wellcome Trust (United Kingdom). The list is compiled by Professor Theo Schuyt and his team of the VU University Amsterdam.

The Postcode Lottery will start to raise funds for charity in Norway. On Friday, Novamedia Norsk Postkodelotteri AS, together with its partners SOS Barnebyer and the WWF, won one of the three lottery licences in the draw for games of chance in Norway. The licence makes it possible to hold a Norwegian version of the Postcode Lottery – the charity lottery in which you and your neighbours win together. The Novamedia/Postcode Lotteries organisation has already raised more than €8 Billion (NOK 74,678,400,000) for charities and thousands of social initiatives throughout the world.

The Rwandan start-up EarthEnable is the winner of the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge 2017. During the finale, co-founder Gayatri Datar impressed the international jury with her sustainable alternative for cement to replace dirt floors. As the winner, she receives a cheque of €500,000 to further develop her green innovation. The runner-up prize of €200,000 goes to the biodegradable alternative for plastic by the Danish start-up Pond. This year, the other three finalists were also surprised to each receive €100,000. This brings the total prize pool of one of the biggest sustainability competitions in the world to €1 million.

An injection of €500,000 is what stands to be won at the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge, one of the largest annual international competitions in the field of sustainability innovation. ARED and EarthEnable from Rwanda, Glowee from France, Ligthyear from the Netherlands and Pond from Denmark are the five start-ups that made it to the finale and which are still in the running for the grand prize. They will present their business plans to an international jury, the press and the public on 14 September in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. During the finale, it will be announced who will go home with the grand prize of half a million euros. The runner-up will receive €200,000.

Nominees for the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge 2017 announced

Today, the 25 nominees with a chance to secure a place in the finale of the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge 2017, an annual competition organized by the Dutch Postcode Lottery to provide a helping hand to starting green entrepreneurs, were announced. A record number of 515 entrepreneurs from no fewer than 89 countries submitted their sustainable business plans aimed at combating climate change. The pre-jury studied the submissions and from them, selected the best 25 start-ups. These 25 entrepreneurs are still in the running to win the €500,000 first prize. On 15 August, it will be announced which five of these contenders will move on to the finale, which will take place on 14 September. During the finale, it will become clear which lucky entrepreneur will go home with first prize.